


Together

by betweentwopines



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, POV Ben Solo, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:36:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22021183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweentwopines/pseuds/betweentwopines
Summary: Major TROS spoilers.....Rey and Ben go to Tatooine to bury the past, and they start a new journey together.Basically, I'm just giving Rey and Ben a happy and hopeful ending.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Together

It was hard being back. He’d stood in the _Millennium Falcon_ only hours ago, so he should be over it. But here he stood in the middle of the hold, reliving every time he’d been in the ship before, every memory it held. And unlike when he’d boarded the ship as Kylo Ren, he allowed himself to feel every feeling inside of him. That’s why there were tears on his face and a broken chair lying on the floor. It was freeing to feel and not fear judgement or punishment. Ben Solo could finally be himself. He didn’t really know what that meant, but he wanted to find out. 

He knew it’d be hard, but he could do it. He had the strength. And better yet, he wasn’t alone. He didn’t have to face his demons and fight this battle alone. If only one person in the entire universe was at his side, he was glad it was her. 

Suddenly, he needed to see her, to reassure himself that it wasn’t a dream or a cruel trick of his mind. He strode to the cockpit, finding her at the controls. 

“I’m here, Ben. I’m always here.” Rey spoke softly and without him having to say a word. She knew him so well, and with the walls in each of their minds down, she could sense his emotions too.

He knew she was with him. He knew she wasn’t leaving. He knew it. But…

“Coming out of hyperspace.”

“We’ve been in space for that long?” It’d only felt like minutes. She reached for his hand, and as her fingers brushed his, he once again felt that undeniable pull of attraction toward her, and, more than that, the reassurance that she was with him whatever may come. 

“Yes.” The swirls faded to stars, and the planet the color of various shades of tan and rust was in front of them. “Do you want to bring us in?” 

He nodded while his mind swirled. Pilot the _Falcon?_ Him? Rey moved from her seat to the copilot’s seat. He sat down in the pilot’s chair. His dad’s chair. He breathed out and put his hands on the controls. A memory flashed, but not his memory. 

Han piloting the ship, Chewie copiloting. The laser cannons fired. Ben looked out the viewport. The Death Star was in front of the _Falcon._ A lone X-Wing was shooting across a trench.

Ben knew this. He’d heard it before. Uncle Luke’s attack run on the first Death Star.

“You’re all clear kid!” His dad was speaking into a headset. “Now let’s blow this thing, and go home.”

And suddenly Ben was back, looking out at the desert planet in front of him. 

“Ben?” Rey put a hand on his arm. 

He looked at her, his father’s words from a lifetime ago echoing in his mind. _Go home. Go home. Go home._ Knowing both his parents loved him, that was home. Sitting here with Rey, that was home. 

He gave Rey a smile. He could always offer one to her. She deserved all the smiles and more. And he actually wanted to smile whenever he was around her. 

“I had a vision. My father. It was good.” 

She smiled softly, and he’d never seen anything more beautiful. Though he’d say that again the next time she smiled or laughed or just existed without hatred for him in her heart.

He turned his focus back to the controls and piloted the _Falcon_ closer to the dustbowl of a planet named Tatooine. The odds were stacked against him, but weren’t they always for his family? He could do this. He could fight this uphill battle for atonement. He had to right his numerous and grievous wrongs. And he had the strength to do it. He always had. 

Ben brought the ship down for a landing outside of the old Lars homestead. He’d never actually been to Luke’s childhood home. Never wanted to. Still didn’t if he was honest with himself. But he and Rey had agreed. This desolate place was important to his uncle and his grandfather. Their journeys both started here. And if Kenobi had decided it was the place to hide the son of Anakin Skywalker, then this was the place to bury the old legacy. 

He stood. Rey stood too, encouraging her with her eyes and no words. They’d never needed words to know the others heart and soul. They exited the ship, the weight of a lightsaber on either hip feeling strange to him, and to Rey too. Now that they let their walls down they shared thoughts so easily. Never had someone been such a part of him as her. 

They stepped over to the edge of the Lars homestead. The courtyard was covered in sand, and scorch marks could still be seen on the walls. 

Luke had lived here. Had grown up here. How lonely it must’ve been. Of course, he’d had his family. Ben could imagine him dreaming of a different future every night than one stuck on this dusty rock. He wondered if Luke ever dreamed of the future he got. Did he ever think he’d be the last Jedi? Would he have stayed if he knew how horribly everything would go wrong? Did he ever think he’d regret training his nephew? Did he ever think he’d even have family outside of Leia? Did his spirit look down at Ben now and wonder what he was doing here? Was he glad his nephew was back on the light? Or would he even care? 

Rey squeezed his hand. 

He sensed them and turned. Mom. Uncle Luke. Leia and Luke stood with smiles on their faces. Ben could feel their love. Even Luke’s. Ben had tears in his eyes and flowing down his cheeks. 

He could do this. He would do this. For them. For his mother, his father, his uncle, his family. The people that in the end believed in him. The mother that always did believe in him. And for the woman that stood beside him now, who always would believe in him. 

He smiled softly and moved away from the homestead and the Force ghosts. He knelt down in the sand, Rey at his side. She laid down a red piece of fabric on the sand. He unclipped his mother’s lightsaber and placed it on the fabric. Rey unclipped Luke’s lightsaber and placed it beside Leia’s. She delicately wrapped them in the fabric then she sat back and waited. 

He took a deep breath. Let go of old things. Let go of the past that didn’t work anymore, and build something new. He placed his hand over them and closed his eyes. Rey’s hand covered his, and together they buried the lightsabers in the sand.

Rey stood and ignited her new lightsaber. The gold blade shone out of the dark hilt. He stood and ignited his own lightsaber. His was silver, leaning more towards blue than white, and the hilt was built out of old scrap pieces of metal from the Falcon, wrapped with pieces of tan leather. 

Both lightsabers were theirs and theirs alone. They were symbols of the new ways. Connection and compassion. Selflessness and love. A new way to define what it means to use the Force. Ben felt a smile creeping up on his face. Yes, he could do this.

As one they shut down their sabers. He turned to look for Luke and Leia, but they were gone. Only from sight, as he could still feel them around him. He would forever carry them with him, but not as a burden, as guiding lights and examples of what not to do. He would not make the same mistakes as those that came before. He would not repeat the mistakes he already made. 

Rey walked a few steps forward up over the crest of a small sand dune, the twin suns in front of her. He stepped up beside her. They would begin a new journey now, together. 

Ben sat in the cockpit of the _Millennium Falcon,_ staring aimlessly at the sand dunes in front of him. The planet’s three moons meant that the planet wasn’t covered in pitch black darkness at night, so when the small desert creatures scurried across the dunes, he could make them out. Of course, that was only if he was paying attention, which he wasn’t. 

His mind was elsewhere, captured by a moment that would haunt him as a long as he lived. Rey lying cold and broken on the ground. He’d known something was wrong as he made his painful climb. The spot in his mind where she always was, that bright spot in the sea of darkness, was gone, leaving an empty hole. 

He had cradled Rey’s cold body in his arms, begging the Force for a different ending. Not believing that she was really gone. She couldn’t be gone. Not Rey. Not Rey. Not Rey. And then it came to him. Rey using the Force to heal him. Could he do that here? When she was so far gone? Would it kill him? He didn’t care. He placed a hand on her stomach and sank into the Force, letting the calmness of the light roll over him, immersing himself deeply in the Force. Rey deserved to live and somehow, he knew if he did this he would die. His life for hers. It was the only thing to do. 

But Ben didn’t die. Somehow, they both lived. It was a gift of the Force. He knew he shouldn’t think too deeply on it. Just accept the gift of life, but he was too curious for his own good. He had to know how this happened. Rey also wanted to know. 

They asked the same question in their minds as they walked out of the temple, and without words they knew that they needed to know more about the Force. Knew that something like Palpatine coming back couldn’t happen again. But at that time, it was too fresh, too raw. All they’d wanted to do was get away from that nightmare of a place. Rey wasn’t willing to let him out of her sight, and he didn’t want to leave her side either, even if it meant facing those he’d wronged sooner than he wanted. 

If he and Rey hadn’t been leaning on each other, he wasn’t sure that those on the _Falcon_ wouldn’t have just blasted him out of existence. And could he blame them? 

Finn had stepped out first, his blaster raised. Rey raised her lightsaber and called out, “He’s with me.” He’d been surprised when she called the _Falcon_ for a pickup, even more surprised when she hadn’t given any further details. 

Finn, to his credit, took it better than expected that Rey was bringing a monster with her. The other woman, Jannah, kept eyeing him the whole trip back to the known galaxy. Chewie and Lando, however, embraced him with open arms. 

That journey back was painful but good, and now Ben was ready to start a new journey to discover things in the Force, to attempt a path of atonement, and to start the galaxy on a path where this decades spanning war wouldn’t happen again. 

It was a large burden. 

_But you’re not alone._

He turned, but she wasn’t standing behind him. He smiled. It should be strange to know that there’s someone out there with complete access to your mind and soul, but it wasn’t. Rey was a part of him just like he was a part of her. They lived and died together. They were two halves of the same whole. 

He left his brooding thoughts behind and went to find her. She was standing in the galley making a prep meal, and he had the strangest urge to come up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist, like he’d rarely seen his dad do with his mom. She gave him assent through the bridge in their minds, and he moved forward without even deciding to. His arms came around her waist, and he placed his chin on her shoulder. Her body relaxed against his, and he pressed a kiss to her cheek. It felt like the most natural thing in the galaxy to do. Being with her felt like the most natural thing in the galaxy, the most right, the most perfect. 

“Come on, let’s eat.” Rey shrugged him away, but reassured him with a single look that she wasn’t mad, just hungry. 

He moved away from her and took his plate off the small counter. 

“Next time I’ll cook,” he said as they made their way to the dejarik table. 

“Do you know how to cook? I mean, real food not prepped meals and packets.” 

“No.” He’d never had a need to learn. 

“Poe taught me how to make his mother’s spice cake.” 

He could feel how the action had touched her. Someone sharing a part of family history with her was special. He wished he could do something similar, but the only thing his family history brought was pain. 

“Poe wants to talk to you.” 

Ben froze midbite. Chewie and Lando had talked with him. Rey’s friend Rose had told him about her sister. Said words about forgiveness that Ben couldn’t yet accept. Finn had said a few warning words and kept an eye on him, but he hadn’t felt white hot anger, just distrust. Poe had ignored him, but Ben could feel the heat of his searing fury and hatred whenever he passed by. 

“I asked him why, and he wouldn’t answer. Maybe by the time we return he’ll be ready for a mature conversation.” 

“I was the childlike one. He’s got every right to hate me. They all do.” 

“That’s not true.” 

He met her warm gaze. “I feel guilty just being with you. They deserve to have you fighting for them. Not me.”

“I’m fighting for all of us. There’s no them and you. You’re all resisting the dark. You’re all Resistance, and we all fight for the light. You and me have to fight in different ways than they do. The war isn’t just on the battlefield. It’s in our souls as well.” 

Ben took a minute to digest her words before finally saying, “You’re wise.” 

Rey smiled. “I had good teachers.” 

His uncle, his mother. He swallowed and looked away. 

“You know what you taught me?” 

He shrugged and took the last bite of his meal. 

“It was more than any of the others. You showed me that I wasn’t alone. Not really a lesson, but something I needed to know to move forward.” 

He looked up at her now, feeling the warmth of her love spread through the bridge in their minds. She had tears in her eyes that confused him. Her fear flooded across the bridge.

“When you almost died, trying to save me…” Her lips trembled. “I thought I was going to be alone. You’re the only one who knows me and hasn’t left me.” 

She stood, and with the boldness that he loved about her, came around the edge of the table and pressed a kiss to his lips. He reached for her and drew her down so that she was sitting in his lap. He broke the kiss and smiled at her, tears in his eyes.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. I need you, Rey.”

Her response was another kiss, a promise that they’d never be without the other again, that together they would embark on this new journey and discover the things they were meant to discover, together.


End file.
